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Radiocarbon dating is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.
Archaeological science consists of the application of scientific techniques to the analysis of archaeological materials and sites. It is related to methodologies of archaeology. Martinón-Torres and Killick distinguish ‘scientific archaeology’ from ‘archaeological science’. Martinón-Torres and Killick claim that ‘archaeological science’ has promoted the development of high-level theory in archaeology. However, Smith rejects both concepts of archaeological science because neither emphasize falsification or a search for causality.
The Shroud of Turin, also known as the Holy Shroud, is a length of linen cloth that bears a faint image of the front and back of a man. It has been venerated for centuries, especially by members of the Catholic Church, as the actual burial shroud used to wrap the body of Jesus of Nazareth after his crucifixion, and upon which Jesus's bodily image is miraculously imprinted. The human image on the shroud can be discerned more clearly in a black and white photographic negative than in its natural sepia color, an effect discovered in 1898 by Secondo Pia, who produced the first photographs of the shroud. This negative image is associated with a popular Catholic devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus.
Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is a form of mass spectrometry that accelerates ions to extraordinarily high kinetic energies before mass analysis. The special strength of AMS among the different methods of mass spectrometry is its ability to separate a rare isotope from an abundant neighboring mass. The method suppresses molecular isobars completely and in many cases can also separate atomic isobars. This makes possible the detection of naturally occurring, long-lived radio-isotopes such as 10Be, 36Cl, 26Al and 14C.
The Minoan eruption was a catastrophic volcanic eruption that devastated the Aegean island of Thera circa 1600 BCE. It destroyed the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri, as well as communities and agricultural areas on nearby islands and the coast of Crete with subsequent earthquakes and paleotsunamis. With a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 7, it resulted in the ejection of approximately 28–41 km3 (6.7–9.8 cu mi) of dense-rock equivalent (DRE), the eruption was one of the largest volcanic events in human history. Since tephra from the Minoan eruption serves as a marker horizon in nearly all archaeological sites in the Eastern Mediterranean, its precise date is of high importance and has been fiercely debated among archaeologists and volcanologists for decades, without coming to a definite conclusion.
Edward Thomas Hall, CBE, Hon. FBA, FSA, also known as Teddy Hall, was a British scientist and balloonist who is best remembered for exposing the Piltdown Man as a fraud.
Raymond N. Rogers was an American chemist who was considered a leading expert in thermal analysis. To the general public, however, he was best known for his work on the Shroud of Turin.
The Shroud of Turin, a linen cloth that tradition associates with the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, has undergone numerous scientific tests, the most notable of which is radiocarbon dating, in an attempt to determine the relic's authenticity. In 1988, scientists at three separate laboratories dated samples from the Shroud to a range of 1260–1390 CE, which coincides with the first certain appearance of the shroud in the 1350s and is much later than the burial of Jesus in 30 or 33 CE. Aspects of the 1988 test continue to be debated. Despite some technical concerns that have been raised about radiocarbon dating of the Shroud, no radiocarbon-dating expert has asserted that the dating is substantially unreliable.
Robert Ernest Mortimer Hedges is a British archaeologist and academic.
Martin Jim Aitken FRS was a British archaeometrist.
A.J. Timothy Jull is a radiocarbon scientist at the University of Arizona's Accelerator Mass Spectrometer Laboratory, as well as Editor in Chief of Meteoritics & Planetary Science and Radiocarbon: An International Journal of Cosmogenic Isotope Research. Dr. Jull's work spans numerous disciplines, from radiocarbon dating the Shroud of Turin, to looking for signs of life in Martian meteorites.
Christopher Bronk Ramsey is a British physicist, mathematician and specialist in radiocarbon dating. He is a professor at the University of Oxford and was the Director of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA) from 2014 until 2019. He is a member of Merton College, Oxford and a Bodley Fellow. His doctorate, completed in 1987, included the first successful implementation of carbon dioxide gas as a target for radiocarbon dating via accelerator mass spectrometry.
The Kents Cavern 4 maxilla is a human fossil consisting of a right canine, third premolar, and first molar as well as the bone holding them together including a small piece of palate. The fossil was found in 1927 at Kents Cavern, a limestone cave in Torquay, Devon, England. The maxilla was uncovered at a depth of 10 feet 6 inches (3.20 m) and was located directly beneath a key ‘granular stalagmite’ at the site, which was used as a datum during excavations undertaken between 1926 and 1941 by the Torquay Natural History Society. The discovery of the KC4 maxilla was important because it became the earliest direct dated anatomically modern human (AMH) fossil yet discovered from a northwestern European site. Moreover the date obtained via a Bayesian statistical-modelling method provides evidence for the coexistence of anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals.
Bryan Foss Leach is a New Zealand archaeologist. He is a pioneer of integrated regional research programmes, conservation of archaeological materials, zooarchaeology, and broader aspects of archaeological science.
Thomas F. G. Higham is an archaeological scientist and radiocarbon dating specialist. He has worked as Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Oxford, UK, where he was the Director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU) in the Research Lab for Archaeology and the History of Art. He is best known for his work in dating the Neanderthal extinction and the arrival of modern humans in Europe. He is Professor in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna.
The Shroud of Turin is a length of linen cloth bearing the imprint of the image of a man, and is believed by some to be the burial shroud of Jesus. Despite conclusive scientific evidence from three radiocarbon dating tests performed in 1988 which resulted in the shroud being dated to 1260–1390 AD, some researchers have challenged the dating based on various theories, including the provenance of the samples used for testing, biological or chemical contamination, incorrect assessment of carbon dating data, as well as other theories. However, the alternative theories challenging the radiocarbon dating have been disproved by scientists using actual shroud material, and are thus considered to be fringe theories.
Modern archaeology is the discipline of archaeology which contributes to excavations.
Rachel Wood is a specialist in the radiocarbon dating of Pleistocene archaeological sites. She is Director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU) at the University of Oxford.
Archaeometry is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering archaeological science, particularly absolute dating methods, artefact studies, quantitative archaeology, remote sensing, conservation science, and environmental archaeology. It is published bimonthly by Wiley-Blackwell, on behalf of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art at the University of Oxford, in association with the Gesellschaft für Naturwissenschaftliche Archäologie Archäometrie and the Society for Archaeological Sciences. Its current editors are A. Mark Pollard, Ina Reiche, Brandi MacDonald, Gilberto Artioli, and Catherine Batt.
Alan Mark Pollard is a British archaeological scientist, who has been the Edward Hall Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Oxford since 2005. He is director of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Member of the Oriental Ceramic Society. He has significantly contributed to many areas of archaeological science, most notably materials analysis, with hundreds of well-cited papers.
References
- 1 2 3 RLAHA page on the Oxford University School of Archaeology website
- ↑ "Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit". Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art.
- 1 2 3 "Mike Tite Has Retired After 15 Years as Edward Hall Professor of Archaeological Science and Director of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art". Archaeometry. 47 (1): i–ii. 2005. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4754.2005.00183.x.
- ↑ Pollard, A. Mark (2014), "Hall, Edward T", in Smith, Claire (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, New York, NY: Springer New York, pp. 3189–3191, doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_347, ISBN 978-1-4419-0426-3 , retrieved 5 January 2022
- ↑ Damon, P. E.; Donahue, D. J.; Gore, B. H.; Hatheway, A. L.; Jull, A. J. T.; Linick, T. W.; Sercel, P. J.; Toolin, L. J.; Bronk, C. R.; Hall, E. T.; Hedges, R. E. M. (February 1989). "Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin". Nature. 337 (6208): 611–615. Bibcode:1989Natur.337..611D. doi:10.1038/337611a0. ISSN 1476-4687. S2CID 27686437.
